Bob's Game Wiki:Wikia Gaming Newsletter
Welcome to the first edition of the Wikia Gaming Community Newsletter. I'll be sending these out periodically to give you tips on community best practices, maximizing traffic, upcoming events and random other musings (and I do mean random). I have been at Wikia for far too long not to have met all of you, so here I am, circa 1980 James Bond ski suit and all, to let you know who I am and why I'm here. It is my job to ensure sustainable growth continues in the gaming vertical and more importantly, that you succeed at running a community. Over the past year we have blasted through milestones and into the large gaming-site stratosphere, a feat really only possible because of the content you add, and the community you help build. So, kudos and congrats on a job well done! I'll make it short and sweet for the first time...er, that sounds a little dirty. How about, I'll try not to inundate you with useless factoids and laborious steps...yet (cue maniacal laughter). Let's kick it like Bruce Lee - you enjoy writing about stuff you love, we totally get that, and now you want your content to be seen by as many eyeballs as possible. Well, the best way to capture that many readers, is to up your Google mojo. Here are two simple steps you can do to ensure you dominate search engine traffic: Change Your Pagetitle Think page titles are for weenies, or an elaborate hoax by unicorns to undermine the color purple? Close, but not exactly...it turns out it's really important for Google. Make sure your page title follows this format: the topic of the wiki + Wiki + 3 search friendly keywords. For example, if your Pookie wiki is called Pookapedia, and that's all that is in the page title, then anyone searching for Pookie won't find you. Your pagetitle should say something like "Pookie Wiki - Pookapedia- Pookie quests, walkthroughs and Pookie 2 news". You can make things right by editing MediaWiki:Pagetitle and MediaWiki:Pagetitle-view-mainpage -- check out Demigod's pagetitle for a great example. Update Your Main Page Google starts indexing your wiki from the main page, so make sure you send Google to the right place. You should link to the most important content on the wiki from your main page. For example, if your wiki is about a role playing game, you should link to 50 of the important characters, items, maps, quests and relevant category pages. Google recommends that you link to no more than 100 pages from your main page. You can use Special:MostLinked to find the most relevant content in case you aren't sure what peeps care about. For a great example, of a lean and mean mainpage, check out Last Remnant. Please add this newsletter to your watchlist to ensure you receive future editions. Want more? Tell us what you would like to have featured or what hot wiki skills you're interested in learning about Thanks! -- Doug (talk)